Our 6th year anniversary!

It was this day 6 years ago that I learned exactly what it feels like to have one of the most trusted people in your life do the most unthinkable to your child! It's a pain, feeling and sickness one can never forget! No amount of time, happiness or healing could ever make that feeling go away. It's a day filled with such mixed emotions because there are no words to explain the pride or admiration I have for my amazingly strong and courageous daughter who was able to make the choice she did that day! In a way, this day is a day of victory and celebration, but it is overshadowed by such sadness as well, there is no day less bitter sweet! No matter how I progress in my life, I live in an unexplainable fear that very few people could ever understand! There is nothing more painful for me than the daily reminders of the "life sentence" that I was handed to me at the cost of protecting my children. I'd do it again in less than a heartbeat, but that doesn't make my life any easier to "deal" with. Some day, I hope that laws are different and that women don't have to live their life the way me and my family do. I am ever so grateful and blessed to have a man who loves me and is strong enough to walk this (often ugly) path with me, to put up with the effects this has on me emotionally and to tolerate the walls and obstacles that are in the way of our life and future together and for all of my friends and family who have loved, supported and encouraged me along the way, who have never left my side and those who never let me give up and still push me to keep going....for all of you who are on this journey with me...THANK YOU for being there for me and for everything you've done! This year will be the most difficult for me..I am fearful, but I am ready and I hope that on this day next year I can post something much different and celebrate it for the victory and celebration that it truly is!

Time Fly's...usually....but it's our 6 year anniversary and really, in a way it seems like it's been the LONGEST 6 years of my life.  

The past few years have been the most happiest years of my life and yes, that time has flown but this time of year is always very bittersweet for me.  I rejoice but yet, I relive the pain of that day over and over.  It's a feeling you just never forget.  The pit in your stomach...it's just always there the same as it was that day.  

There is so much left unsaid about our story.  So much, that people don't know.  You hear stories like this everyday, but people never think about the aftermath that follows or where people like me go from here.  Few people know what my life has been like since all of this or what I still have to do to protect my kids.  People just assume life goes on...but unfairly, it doesn't.  My life came to a screeching halt.  I've been stuck in a marriage with this man and for all these years have been unable to get help.  The laws don't work in my favor, legal aid refused to help me with my case every time I applied and I can't afford the legal costs to hire an attorney to handle my case as I was told by not one but two attorney's that my case could cost in upwards of $20,000.  It's not as simple as "just getting a divorce".  There is so much more to it than that.  It was always expected to get ugly...very, VERY ugly and I was always told to stay married to him as long as I possibly could.  Everyday is a constant reminder of this life sentence I got, unable to move on with my life...to remarry and have my kids adopted by the man who already claims them as his own.  

This is the year of courage...the year I try to find a way to move forward with my life!  It will take a lot of support & encouragement and reaching out to strangers for help but I feel ready to break free from the prison in which I live and as I pave this path for myself, I hope to find a way to help others so that no one else has to endure this same journey!